Last night I attended the Campaign Asia Digital Media Awards gala presentation in Beijing and there were some great winners from agencies across the region. One of the night’s big winners was Colenso BBDO / AIM Proximity of New Zealand who won the platinum award for best overall campaign for Yellow Chocolate. This amazing project for Yellow Pages also won a gold at Cannes and demonstrates a new way of thinking within agencies. These are the same people who brought us the Best Job in the World. Talking to the team afterwards they were telling me how that campaign and this one for Yellow Pages has completely transformed their agency. Now they approach projects in a completely new way compared to more traditional agencies. All the key people have an equal place at the table from the start where they develop the core idea that answers the client’s challenge. Then the campaign is built around the idea using whichever media is right for that audience. Sounds easy but few agencies work this way.

There must be something in the water in New Zealand (literally in this case) as there were other great winners such Tribal DDB with Live Rescue. To demonstrate the huge task the NZ Coastguard has finding vessels lost at sea, they capsized a boat, stranded 4 people in the ocean, and challenged New Zealand to find them, and save them, in a live-rescue event. Real-time ads drove people online to a search plane simulator to the race against the clock to find the missing boaties. GPS on the boat fed its location into the simulator, which also updated according to current weather conditions and the fading light. Volunteers soon realised they were faced with a hopeless situation, a feeling all too familiar to the Coastguard.

Moving a little further north we had a gold winner from Leo Burnett Sydney for best use of social media. Canon Photochains was developed to promote the Canon EOS DSLR camera range. It won a handful of awards at Cannes International Advertising Festival. The campaign used national television, print and online advertising to invite photographers of all skill levels to upload photographs to a chain started by Canon on the World of EOS website. Once online, people could also start their own photochains, or join those created by others.

OgilvyOne/Neo@Ogilvy Singapore won gold in the retail category for their Nike Trackball concept. Their brief was to “create something as unique and original as the new Nike CTR360 football boot that was to hit the shelves”. They created an interactive in-store experience where ball control and product knowledge of the Nike CTR360 was “both seamless and seductive”.

A special mention has to go to Amanda King, president of Tribal DDB Asia-Pacific, who was named Digital Agency Head of the Year.